No matter the industry, online reviews matter.
It’s one of the axioms of branding that the best kind of advertising is word-of-mouth advertising. One person telling another about their experience, positive or negative, is more powerful that fifty TV commercials. The problem has always been, “How do we generate word-of-mouth advertising?”
Before the Internet and “Web 2.0,” this was a very difficult thing to do, requiring grassroots events, surveys, testimonials and other expensive and difficult-to-execute programs. Now, in the age of connectedness, it’s not at all. Because of the proliferation of online review sites, and the way Google and other search engines have started aggregating; these reviews from all over the web, word of mouth is simply a part of your online presence, whether or not you sought it out.
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To quote a bad movie adaptation of a good book, “A beginning is a very delicate time.“
No kidding. But here we are – poised to begin exploring this new world. We could start with a dissertation on why I love the Internet, but, really, no one wants or needs that. The Internet is all things to all people, and in the end, that’s all that needs to be said. What we need to concern ourselves with is connectedness.
What we have to learn, in order to make the Internet work for us, is how to harness that connectedness, because if we don’t, we’re either going to get burned, or we’re going to get left behind.
So what does “connectedness” mean, and why is such an awkward word so important?
“Connectedness” means that the traditional boundaries that we have used to delineate different types of behavior and experience are eroding. It means that, to paraphrase a song, “the Earth is moving under our feet.” It’s an exciting new world, filled with new ways to talk to people. New ways to learn about the world. And of course, new ways to sell to people. What companies need to learn is that in a world where people are connected to information and each other in an exponentially growing number of ways, you cannot rely on old methods to reach them.
This is a website about exploring the things that are necessary to win those battles for attention that are at the heart of Internet marketing and the whole “Web 2.0″ phenomenon.
